December 27, 2013

 

As we get ready to enter the year 2014 on our Gregorian Calendars, it is important to remember that we have already entered the year 5774 on the Hebrew Calendar. And rather than refer to it as the Hebrew Calendar, we will simply call it God's Calendar! That said, we are in the Year of the Open Door! An entrance is being provided for God's people into a realm of His presence that most Christians only dream about. The feast that the Lord has set before us at His Table is beyond anything your natural mind can comprehend! Ready?

 

John 6:53-58: Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live forever.

 

What Jesus did by instructing us to eat of Him was to reveal a process that the world simply cannot get a hold of. This is a spiritual picture and it is a spiritual reality. It defies human reasoning, and as a result many believers fail to grasp the significance of what we have available with Christ in us.

 

Those of you familiar with Jesse Duplantis' testimony of being in Heaven will remember the experience when he saw Jesus merging into the father and then coming back out. In the realm of the Spirit the physical restrictions associated with corporeal (physical) existence simply vanish. In the realm of the Spirit, none of the laws of physics apply. There is no time in the Spirit, and there is no space. If you’ll pardon the Sci-fi illustration, this is “interdimensional living.”

 

[It is one of the reasons why so many Christians have gotten blindsided by the Enemy. They think that evil spirits cannot inhabit their bodies -- especially if they have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior. What they fail to understand is that our bodies have been specifically designed by God in the first place as "spirit containers." That's a discussion I'd like to pursue, but this isn't particularly the time or place I want to get into that. We can consider that aspect of our makeup in a later discussion.]

 

Jesus tells us that if we eat and drink of Him, we are in Him and He is in us. We have been merged together. The apostle Paul explained it like this:

 

II Corinthians 5:17-19: Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

 

The picture that Paul draws is that not only was Jesus in Father, but that Father came to earth IN JESUS! This was a real conundrum for Philip. He couldn’t figure things out. Jesus was telling the disciples that He was getting ready to leave and prepare a place for them in His Father’s house. Philip said to Jesus (and I’m paraphrasing), “Lord, we’ll understand things a whole lot better if you’ll show us the Father.

 

John 14:9-11: Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.

 

The body of Christ still doesn’t grasp this. We don’t really grasp it yet. We have a concept and perhaps an image of it in our minds but lack the revelation. If we can receive this revelation and allow it to permeate our beings, it will radically change how we think, how we live and how we function day-to-day.

 

This is why and how Jesus could follow what He said to Philip with this:

 

John 14:12-14: Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.

 

Understand? The revelation of this is that whenever we ask anything of Father in the name of Jesus, we are asking Father just as if Jesus were doing it. If He is in us, then Jesus is making the request.

 

This is how the onoma of the Lord works in us, through us, with us, around us. His onoma is His character, His makeup, the very essence of who He is! With His onoma comes His authority, His power — AND — His relationship with Father. Pretty simple isn’t it? We’ve so complicated this that we’ve lost sight of who and what Jesus is in us. It isn’t just Him! It is Father, as well.

John describes it like this:

 

I John 2:24-29 (NASB): "As for you, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. This is the promise which He Himself made to us: eternal life. These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you. As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him. Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming."

 

If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him. This is how we receive revelation. Jesus had said that if He left He would send another “comforter” — the Paraklete — Holy Spirit. Now, put all that together and what do you have? We live in Jesus Christ. We live because of His sacrifice. We live because we eat and drink of Him.

 

But there’s more!

 

Because we eat and drink of Jesus, we also eat and drink of Father. Therefore, Father is in us. Both Jesus AND Father live in us. But still there’s more!

 

Jesus had said He was sending Holy Spirit. Here’s how He put it:

 

John 14:16-21: "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him."

 

Jesus was saying that despite the fact that He was departing from the earth in physical form, He was still in us, and so was Father. But more than that, He was sending Holy Spirit to be with us.

 

And still there was more! Jesus promised that He — Holy Spirit — would also be in us! This is why He said to the disciples, ^"And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high."

 

The “power from on high” was Holy Spirit — the force that energized the life and Word of Jesus Christ — and Father — in us.

 

When John began His Gospel, he wrote,

 

John 1:1-4, 12-14: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

 

"But as many as received him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth."

 

Jesus was the Word made flesh. We become the Word made flesh when we confess with our mouths the Lord Jesus Christ. We become the Word made flesh when we — with Christ in us — speak the Word that He spoke, and speak it in agreement with Him and the Father. When we speak the Word in agreement with Him, it becomes rhema! It has the force within it that keeps the universe together!

 

Holy Spirit — dwelling with us and in us — energizes and empowers that Word so that it has the same creative force that it had when Jesus spoke it. What needs we have, we ask Father for in the onoma of Jesus. Father — in Jesus — enacts those needs for us by means of the Holy Spirit who is both with us and in us.

 

Are you beginning to grasp this picture? Are you getting the significance of “Christ in us, the hope of Glory”? The apostle Paul expressed it like this when he was writing to the Ekklesia in Colosse:

 

Colossians 1:26-27: "Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory."

 

This is a revelation — the concept of Christ in us. With that revelation comes the understanding that it is not only Jesus, the Son with His anointing, but it is Father in us as well. More than that, we have Holy Spirit dwelling in us, filling us and permeating us with God’s presence! With Holy Spirit indwelling us as the power-generating force that gives life to the Word (who is Jesus), we become Jesus to the world around us.

 

The light that radiated from Him was that same light that exploded into being when He spoke those first words of Creation, “Light be!” That’s the light that dwells in us when we are in the Anointed One and His anointing — and He is in us!

 

John 8:12: "Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."

 

John 9:4-5: "I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world."

 

And Jesus commanded us to duplicate that by being in Him.

 

Matthew 5:14-16: "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."

 

The parallel that Jesus is drawing in this statement is that He didn’t light us up with His presence just to stick us under a bushel and hide us from the rest of the world. He illuminated us with Himself so that Father would receive the Glory.

 

Matthew 10:7-8: "And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give."

 

We haven’t become Jesus to the world to do anything less than Jesus did. He healed the sick. He raised the dead. He cleansed the lepers. He cast out evil spirits with His Word. He broke the chains that held people captive. He restored crushed spirits. And all of the power and authority to accomplish everything that Jesus did has been invested in us. That’s why Jesus made a point of stating that ALL authority was His, and His to dispense.

 

Matthew 28:18-20: And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power (exousia—authority) is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

 

ALL POWER — ALL AUTHORITY! Get it? That’s what resides in us by virtue of the Father being in the Son, the Son being in us, Holy Spirit being with us, in us and filling us ….. AND … us in Jesus!

 

Let’s try this again, expressing it just a bit differently.

 

Father and Son merge with one another. You see one — you see the other. Holy Spirit is the energizing power — the same power that upholds everything in the universe — of God the Father and God the Son. And that’s the same power that resides in us. And that’s the same power that we reside in. So how come we don’t experience this 24 hours a day?

 

The answer is simple enough. If we don’t see it, we don’t believe it. If we don’t believe it, we can’t have it experientially. And herein lies the crux of this issue: seeing this authority and power resident within us! The problem is that we seek for signs or evidence with our natural eyes rather than the eyes of Holy Spirit.

 

George Robinson has a rather unique way of ministering healing to folks. He takes them "to the bosom of Father" where there is no sickness, no disease, no infirmity, no organ failure -- in other words, where there is nothing broken and nothing missing!

 

That's the key, folks! If we can see ourselves in Father; if we can see ourselves in Christ; if we can see ourselves in the anointing of The Anointed One, there is absolutely NOTHING that Jesus has paid for on our behalf that we cannot have!!

 

We will pick it up here next week.

 

Happy New Year and Blessings on you!